Ridley trailed me to Hunters Point. She didn’t even try to hide it.
I wasn’t sure if she was protecting me or making sure I didn’t take off again, but I was pretty sure it was the first, which made me mentally roll my eyes.
At least she hung back while I negotiated a fee with the woman I selected in exchange for her blood.
The woman told me to call her Bella and took me to a room above an auto repair shop that smelled of gasoline and sex. The only furniture was a nightstand, a three-legged stool and a daybed covered with a crumpled pink sheet. Tucked behind a rattan partition at one end of the room were a toilet and a rust-stained sink.
Bella sat on the bed and brushed her long dark hair over one shoulder so I could access her throat. “Your fifteen minutes start now,” she said with a nod at the small clock next to the lamp.
Putting five twenties on the table, I sat down and gave her an easy smile to hide my distaste—not for Bella, for the situation. I’d met enough sex workers in the course of my volunteer work to know she’d probably been pushed into this life by a pimp or to feed her family, or both.
I took the minimum amount of blood, finishing before my fifteen minutes was up.
And yeah, I got a hard-on. For vampires and dhampirs, sex and the blood craving are wired along the same primitive pathways.
I wiped the blood from my mouth on the back of my hand and started to get up.
Bella stopped me with a hand on my crotch. “For another seventy-five, I can take care of that for ya, too.”
“I’m good.” I removed her hand. I was horny as hell, but Bella wasn’t the woman I wanted.
“You sure?”
“I gave you all my cash.” I lied because it was the quickest way to end this.
Bella’s plucked black brows jumped in surprise. Her painted mouth turned down. “Like hell. If you don’t wanna, all you hafta say is no. Everyone knows how rich you vampires are.”
I ignored that to wash up. “Thanks,” I said as I opened the door. “You have a good night, now.”
“Yeah, sure.” Her lips twisted in a way that was too old for a twenty-something woman. She eyed my cheap Paris T-shirt and faded jeans. “Funny. You look like one of them Dark Angels. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “I get that a lot.”
Outside the night was hot and humid. Overhead, thick clouds had piled up, wiping out the stars with a heavy hand. Ridley waited on the corner near a woman wearing leather shorts and thigh-high boots.
The woman in shorts made a beeline in my direction. “Hey, handsome.”
Ridley cut her off. “He’s mine.”
“Hey.” The woman started to argue until she took a second look at Ridley’s face. She closed her mouth with a snap. “Yeah, sure.”
Ridley fell in beside me. Her mouth was pinched, her shoulders tight. And not because I’d fed.
She was jealous.
I smothered a smile. “I only took blood, you know.”
Her pinched lips smoothed out. She moved a shoulder. “You don’t owe me an explanation. You needed to feed. You look a lot better, to be honest.”
“I feel a lot better.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her to face me. “And I think I do.”
She blinked up at me like a suspicious owl. “What?”
“I do owe you an explanation.”
“No. I—we’re not—”
I took her face between my palms and stopped her sputtered protest with my mouth. Her breath hitched and her body melted against mine.
A haze filled my head. I was still horny, still craving sex.
But not just any sex. Sex with Ridley.
The hell with the fact that I wasn’t sure how far to trust her. I wanted this woman more than I wanted my next breath.
“Actually,” I said against her lips, “we are. At least for these few days. I want to fuck, but not her. You.”
A sigh escaped her. She rubbed up against me like a cat, and I went from half-hard to hell-yeah-we’re-doing-this, my dick trying to push out of my jeans.
With a groan, I wrapped my arms around her. Her body fitted itself to mine like she was my other half, her abdomen taut against my erection, her small, perfect breasts pressed to my chest. The nipples were hard points that I was wild to taste again.
Ridley ran her lips along the stubble on my jaw. “I shouldn’t say this.”
I nibbled her full lower lip. “Say what?”
“I want to fuck you, too. So much.”
My breath snagged in my chest. The raw, needy words ricocheted from my brain to my balls like she’d tasered me.
I gripped her nape and thrust my tongue into her mouth. She sucked it deeper, and the kiss got hot and heavy in a hurry. She twined a leg around mine and rubbed her crotch over mine.
The pressure of my zipper against my cock hurt, but in a good way. I rocked my hips against her and maneuvered us so her back was against the wall of a nearby store.
Keeping my grip on her nape, I eased her T-shirt up with my free hand and ran the thumb over the stretchy black material of her bra, playing with her aroused nipple.
A passing car honked, reminding me we were on a busy street. I broke the kiss and lifted my head, chest jerking like I’d run a 100-meter dash. For a few seconds, neither of us spoke. I don’t know about Ridley, but my mind was too revved to form a coherent sentence.
She drew a jagged inhale. Her gaze tracked from my mouth to my eyes and back again.
I eased her shirt down over her stomach. “Let’s go back to the squat.”
She swallowed. Nodded. “Okay.”
Back in our room, we dragged off our clothes and boots. Ridley finished first, me right behind. I tossed my T-shirt, boxers and jeans on a chair and crossed to where she stood by the bed.
She put her hands on my chest and ran her fingers through the hair on my chest. “You are so hot.” She played with my nipples. “My beautiful Dark Angel.”
I blew out a breath.
“What?” Luminous gray eyes met mine.
“I hate that nickname. It’s not…me. It’s someone the media made up.”
“Really? Then I won’t use it again. But I have to say, I have a thing for angels.” She traced a finger down my unshaven cheek. “Especially the dark ones. They’re pretty sexy.”
“Yeah?” My mouth curved in a slow smile. I took her hand and sucked her wandering digit into my mouth. “Then you can call me Angel anytime you want.”
Her lips formed an ‘O.’ “It feels like you’re touching me. Down there.”
“Here?” I said around her finger and slid my other hand between her legs, cupping her.
She was hot and slick. I dipped my middle finger into her juices, then toyed with her clit.
“Yeah. There.” She removed her finger from my mouth and clutched my shoulders.
Without stopping what I was doing between her legs, I nibbled on her ear. “Remember what I said about not being that nice?”
A jerky nod.
“Right now, I’m not feeling nice at all. I want to do bad things to you.”
Her breath hitched. A gush of liquid heat wet my fingers. “Yes.”
Oh, yeah, that’s what I wanted to hear.
“So here’s what’s going to happen.” I traced the rim of her ear with my tongue. “First, I’m going to make you come, and then I’m going to take you against the wall. Hard. Is that what you want?”
She moaned.
“Talk to me, Ridley.”
She gulped. “Yes. God, yes.”
I growled low in her ear. “You’re such a bad girl,” I told her, and proceeded to do exactly what I’d promised.
I took my time. Making her beg me a little, because we both liked it. And then I gave her what she was pleading for.
She came twice. Once with my mouth and fingers on her, and once when I was pounding into her against the wall, her inner muscles squeezing rhythmically around me.
The sight and sound and feel of her coming apart dragged me over the edge after her. I thrust a few more times and with a shudder, emptied myself into her.
After, I let go of her legs and she slid them down my thighs to the floor.
She rested her forehead on my chest with an exhale. “I saw stars.”
I chuckled. A wave of tenderness washed over me. I tamped it down, reminded myself not to let her get under my guard. Sex—even incredible sex—didn’t make her any less my enemy.
I set her from me. “Be right back.”
Wrapping a towel around my waist, I went to the john to clean up and dispose of the condom. When I returned, Ridley was curled up on the mattress.
“Move over,” I said.
She did, and I got into bed next to her. For the first time, she was the one by the wall and I the one nearer to the door.
It was a sign of trust on her part. A simple gesture, but somehow, it made my defenses collapse.
The hell with it. I hooked an arm around her waist and drew her into me so I spooned her, my front to her back.
“G’night,” she said sleepily.
I nuzzled the silky skin of her temple. “Good night.”
Friday night we went back to Manhattan again. Traveling to the heart of Kral territory after dark was iffy, but I donned my human camouflage and Ridley had an actor’s ability at disguising herself.
We spent the night trying to track down my father without tipping him off. It didn’t work, of course. Even when things were normal, he was a secretive bastard, and it wasn’t like we could walk up to people and ask where he was. I worked what contacts I had, but if anyone knew his location, they weren’t telling.
Maybe he hadn’t even returned to the city yet.
By the time we returned to the Bronx Saturday morning, I was fighting down panic. The week I’d been given was more than half over, and I had no idea where Father was.
And meanwhile, Rafe was at the mercy of those sick bastards in Paris.
When I awoke around six that evening, I felt dark, irritable, twitchy. The vampire beast wanted out. I’d managed to keep it leashed since Paris, but now it wanted to kick some ass—or fuck.
Ridley was curled on her side, facing away from me. Naked.
When we’d returned that morning, we’d been too tired to do anything but strip off our clothes and fall onto the mattress.
The black sheet covered her legs. Her upper body emerged from it like some fairy creature glowing palely against a shadowy forest floor. I eyed her hungrily: the delicate wings of her shoulders, the beads of her vertebrae, the curve of her hips.
The dark part of me wanted to close my fingers around her nape, hold her face down and take her from behind.
I turned onto my back and fought for control.
I wasn’t angry at Ridley. Not really. She was part of this, but she wasn’t the prime mover. In her way, she was as trapped as me.
She rolled over and touched my chest. “Morning.”
Her fingers slid down and wrapped around my erection. I bit back a groan.
The roughness with which I’d taken her up until now was nothing compared to how dominant I felt like being right now. I wanted to hold her down and sink my fangs into that pretty throat of hers while I pounded into her until she was screaming with pleasure.
But fuck if I’d let her see the monster in me. I wasn’t ashamed of my vampire; it was part of me. But she didn’t feel the same way.
I put my hand on her wrist. “Go back to sleep. You don’t want me right now.”
But I didn’t remove her fingers.
“Shut up, Kral.” She squeezed me. Hard and so good.
My mind blanked. I shut up.
Rising up over me, Ridley kissed her way down my body. My throat, my chest, my cock. She licked the cap, then stroked me with her tongue.
“Suck me,” I growled.
She took me into her mouth. I speared my fingers into her hair and guided her, showing what I liked. She was a fast learner, licking and sucking and making sexy little moans. It wasn’t long before my balls were drawn up tight and I was close to coming in her mouth.
I tugged at her hair. “Come here. I want to be inside you.”
She released me with a last suck and crawled her way back up me. Grabbing a condom, she rolled it onto my dick, then straddled my thighs and lowered herself onto me a slow slide that seared me from my toes to the top of my head.
I wrapped my fingers around her nape and pulled her down for a rough kiss.
We didn’t speak after that. She moved on me slowly at first, then faster. I met her downward movements with hard upward thrusts. I pinched her nipples and she gasped and bit my ear.
The sex was crude and hungry and just what I needed. We were both close to climaxing when I stopped and lifted her off me.
Her dark brows formed a confused ‘V.’ “Something wrong?”
“Let me…” I laid her on her stomach.
“Oh. Sure.” She lifted her hips. I shoved a pillow under them and crawled over her.
Her cheek was on the mattress, her hair a spill of moonlight on the dark sheet. I nuzzled the turn of her shoulder, and my fangs extended without my volition.
I scraped the tips over her soft skin. Craving her taste and so damn tempted to sink them into her neck and drink deep. She didn’t know what she was missing. I could make this so much better for both of us.
She stiffened and pushed at the mattress. “No.”
I stilled, fangs against the side of her throat, then lifted my head, inhaling deeply. It took all my self-control, but I managed to retract my fangs and focus on sex.
I braced myself on my forearms and slid my dick over her ass. She lifted her hips, encouraging me to enter her. I took myself in hand and teased her entrance with the tip.
She whimpered. “Please.”
“You like it this way? Tell me.” I pushed in a little.
Her fingers dug into the sheet. “Yes.”
“Me too.” I liked it a lot. The badass, take-no-crap Reaper underneath me, moaning and begging and desperate for my cock.
“I’m in the mood for slow.” I pulled out, thrust in a bit deeper. “And hard.” I rocked my hips forward in a firm thrust.
She groaned. “Yes. Oh, God, yes.”
“Touch yourself.” I stroked in and out again. “Like this.” I reached a hand between her and the pillow and rubbed her plump little clit.
She obediently slid her hand between her thighs.
“Good girl. Don’t stop until you come.”
Her inner muscles tightened on me, telling me she liked me taking charge, telling her what to do, praising her.
I pushed in, smacked the side of her ass. “Say it,” I told her. “Say you won’t stop until you come.”
“I…won’t stop. Until I come.” Her muscles clenched around me again like the sensations were so good she couldn’t help herself. “Zaq…” She drew out my name, turned it into a low, primal sound of want and need.
I slapped her ass a couple of more times, enjoying how she moaned and wriggled beneath me, then gripped her hips and started fucking her in earnest.
We climaxed one after the other. She came first, a series of small contractions that sent waves of pleasure up my spine.
And then my balls exploded, and my cock jerked in a shock of bliss that made my brain go first bright, then blank.
I heaved myself to the side and collapsed on the mattress beside her.
Inside, the beast gave a toothy grin and settled back, satisfied. For now.
Ridley remained on her stomach. I opened my eyes to find her staring at me. There was something unguarded in her expression, something that made my throat catch. Before I could analyze it, her face blanked and her coffee-colored lashes swept down.
I nuzzled her neck and got up to take a shower.
When I returned, she was seated naked on the mattress, legs folded yoga-style, waiting her turn at the bathroom.
I took a single, greedy look—I had a feeling I’d never get tired of her lean ninja body—then grabbed my clothes and got dressed.
“I think it’s time I call my father. I’m never going to get to him this way.”
She pursed her lips, then nodded. “But not here.”
“No. I was thinking Times Square subway station. Even if he was able to pinpoint our location, we’d be gone before anyone got to us.”
We set out a half hour later, me in my human camouflage and Ridley wearing her purple-haired, cute-sixteen-year-old glamour.
We hadn’t even reached the subway station when Ridley nudged me. “Look. On the newsstand.”
I followed her gaze to a tabloid with a large photo of Rafe and Princess Zoe on the first page.
Rafe had escaped from Moreau?
I tossed the newsstand operator a five and snatched up a copy, holding it so we could both see the headline: Angel Thaws Ice Princess’s Heart. A smaller subhead read, “New York’s own Prince Charming Finds Eternal Love.”
According to the short article beneath the picture, Rafe and Zoe had been photographed in Paris, their arms around each other, locked in a clinch. The reporter speculated that this would end the Kral-Tremblay blood-feud once and for all.
“He’s free.” Ridley bumped my shoulder and grinned at me.
I studied the photo. “What if this was taken before Moreau got ahold of him?”
“No, he escaped.” She moved a shoulder in an apologetic shrug. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier, but I had reasons. Anyway, he’s free. Believe it.”
She sounded satisfied, like we were on the same side, which made no damn sense.
I frowned down at her. “You’re happy Rafe got away from Moreau? I thought he was a target.”
“Fuck that.” She gripped my arm, her brow furrowed in an earnest, believe-me expression. “This isn’t what I signed up for. We don’t torture our targets. We take them out cleanly.”
I studied her. So the slayer had a code of ethics.
“The important thing,” she added, “is this buys you some time. He’s free, Zaq.”
That’s when it hit me. Rafe was free. He’d escaped from that thrice-damned dungeon.
Relief shuddered through me. Ridley was right, it bought me some time, or at least eased the pressure.
“Okay. Okay.” I blinked, rubbed a hand over my face. “What now?”
“There’s still your father. SI isn’t going to release you from your promise. As long as he’s alive, you and your brothers are still targets.”
“Yeah.” And there was the reminder—if I’d needed it—that Ridley No-Name and I weren’t on the same side. “Let’s go, then.”
We got on the subway and took it to Times Square, where we found a quiet corner. Earlier, while she was in the shower, I’d retrieved the burner phone I’d purchased earlier in the week from its hiding place. Now I punched in Father’s most recent number, hoping it still worked.
I was still looking for a way forward and had decided to ask for a meeting. Somehow I’d ditch Ridley and talk to him, face to face.
And if I had to, I’d stake him.
What I didn’t expect was for Tomas Mraz to answer.
“Who’s this?” he asked suspiciously.
I opened my mouth, then shut it. My thumb hovered over the End Call icon.
Hadn’t Spider said Tomas had gone missing? But Tomas wasn’t just my father’s lieutenant, he was a family friend. Almost like an uncle.
“It’s me,” I said. “Where’s Father?”
“He’s not available.” He didn’t ask how I’d escaped Moreau or if I was okay. But then, he wouldn’t. The big blond lieutenant was old-school. If I’d survived, that meant I was okay.
“Why not?”
“He’s gone dark.”
Frustration gripped me at Tomas’s short, uninformative sentences. “This is urgent, damn it. Can you at least get a message to him for me?”
“No,” Tomas said. No explanation. Just no. “Where are you?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and glanced at Ridley. A word to Tomas, and my father’s people would descend on us. She’d be taken into custody and I’d never see her again.
And the way the vampires in Moreau’s lair had fucked with me? She’d be lucky if they treated her that well.
She might be my enemy, but I just couldn’t do that do her.
I looked away. “Somewhere safe.”
“Where? New York?”
I shifted my feet, aware that Tomas would be trying to trace me. If I talked much longer, he’d be able to triangulate my location using nearby cell phone towers.
“Look, I have to go. If Father contacts you, tell him I want to meet with him.”
“Tell me where you are.”
His insistence sent a cold prickle over my skin. Something was wrong. I thought uneasily of his note about the coup.
G, Z & R plotting against you? Feeding intel to SI. All or just G?
The cold prickle changed to alarm. “Goodbye.”
“Wait,” he barked, but I pretended not to hear and ended the call.
Ridley eyed me. “Who was that?”
“Mraz.”
She stilled. “Is that usual—for him to answer your father’s calls?”
“Not usual, no. But yeah, he’s done it before.”
“So you trust him.”
I rubbed my unshaven jaw. “Not enough to give him our location.”
Her mouth opened like she wanted to say more, but she closed it again. “Agreed. The less people who know where we are, the better.”
Ridley’s phone vibrated. She pulled it out of her pocket and read the message aloud.
“PK is in New Orleans. Due back Sunday.”
“PK is my dad?”
“Yeah.” She texted an acknowledgment and returned the phone to her pocket.
“Fuck.” It meant we’d have to delay another day. I shoved my hand through my hair. “We might as well go back to the squat.”
Sunday evening I woke up feverish and shaking. Another fucking relapse from the silver poisoning.
I would’ve crawled into Manhattan anyway but Ridley told me not to be ridiculous. “You’re in no shape to face your father.”
I passed out in the midst of arguing with her.
Ridley spent the night by my side, sponging me down. And at some point, she crawled into bed with me and let me drink her blood again.
I closed my eyes sometime after midnight and didn’t open them again until Monday afternoon. I rolled over, weak, but clearheaded. The fever was gone.
Ridley sat on a chair, watching me, her light eyes unreadable. An unopened switchblade hung loose in her hand. “You’re better?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed a hand over my unshaven face. “Thanks for the blood. Again.”
She lifted a shoulder, let it drop. “I need you to be at your best.”
My gratitude evaporated. “My bad. I forgot I’m just a tool.”
“I would’ve done it anyway, okay?” Her face had that naked, unguarded look to it again. “For the record, I’m sorry. About all of this.”
Beneath the leather wristbands, my wrists itched and burned. I slid my right thumb beneath the left band and rubbed the raised scar left behind by the silver cuffs.
I huffed a laugh. “For what? Blindly following orders? Believing me and my brothers are monsters without any evidence? Helping another fucking syndicate kidnap me?”
“Yeah.” Her throat worked. “All of that.”
I shook my head and got out of bed. “I’m going to take a shower.”
When I returned, Ridley was downstairs.
I took out my phone and hurriedly dialed Gabriel. The cold shower had helped clear my mind. I’d decided that for now I’d keep stringing Ridley, and thus SI, along.
But I had to get my father to back off. I knew he had people hunting me. If I could get him to back off, maybe I could come up with a plan to salvage this without staking him.
I had to go through a couple of layers to get to Gabriel, but when he finally came on the line he sounded so goddamn normal, I started to shake.
“Zaq? Where are you? Are you okay?” Despite the questions, he sounded distracted. And he was apparently outside, because I heard wind crackling over the microphone.
“I’m fine.”
“Then where the hell are you? Father’s been look—”
I blew out a breath. “Shut up and listen. I don’t have much time—they could trace this call any second. We’ve been on the run for the past week.” That last wasn’t exactly the truth, but it was close enough.
“Who’s we?”
I made a frustrated sound. I didn’t have time for this. It had taken me good ten minutes just to get through to him. Ridley could come back at any second.
“Listen, damn it. The short version is I was kidnapped by the slayers.”
“We know. But who’s we? And where are you now?”
“I can’t tell you. Not over the phone.” The soft scrape of the ladder against the floor warned me Ridley had returned. “Fuck. I have to go.” I dropped my voice. “Tell Father to call off the hunt. I’ll be in touch. And bro?”
“What?”
“You and Rafe be careful. They’re gunning for all three of us. Whoever’s behind this wants to bring Father to his knees.”
Gabriel started to say something, but I cut the connection and returned the phone to my pocket.
Ridley opened the door and frowned at me. “Who were you talking to?”
“My brother Gabriel.”
She grimaced. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Wrong. I should’ve called him sooner. If SI has targeted us, he deserves to know. Besides, I wanted to check in. He must’ve been going out of his mind wondering where the fuck I am.”
She sucked her lower lip in. “I’m just afraid it will come back to bite us. My alpha—” She shook her head.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him where we are.”
She nodded, sighed. “I don’t have any brothers or sisters. It’s hard for me to understand”—she waved a hand—“families.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. And I meant it.
Her eyes flickered. “You don’t miss what you’ve never had.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. She must have seen the compassion on my face because she added, “SI’s my family now.”
And that was just sad.
“Ridley—”
Her expression blanked. “Time to eat.” And she turned on her heel and went out the door.